Our Services

Dr. Stokes’ therapeutic approach is relational, strengths-based, and solution-oriented. The therapeutic relationship is a powerful conduit for change. When you are with her, you feel validated and heard. You’ll experience a down-to-earth therapist who embraces the cultural diversity and spiritual development of her client’s lives. She utilizes a variety of therapeutic treatment strategies with a highly personalized approach.

As a licensed social worker and trained human development and educational psychologist, Dr. Stokes works with a wide range of emotional and behavioral issues that span from late childhood to adulthood with a highly personalized approach.

Narrative Therapy helps you to find your voice and live more fully into your story. Your story, no matter how painful and beautiful, is still your story. It is what has developed you. As we leaf through the pages of your life, sometimes you’ll find you need to hold on to things and other times you’ll need to let go of things that are no longer serving you.

CBT unearths long standing behavior patterns and perceptions that hold you from a meaningful life. How we think affects actions and actions affect perceptions. We will examine thought processes to create positive change and how you perceive and think about life events.

TF-CBT helps you make up lost ground from the aftereffects of traumatic experiences in your life and developmental process. We will learn how to integrate the trauma experience and understand the trauma response system. TF-CBT is an evidence-based practice for children and adolescents that develop a trauma narrative for re-processing maladaptive thinking. This treatment has also been effective for a variety of developmental stages and complex, diverse trauma histories. Teaching new skills and altering maladaptive cognitions.

Mindfulness therapy grows a sense of awareness. Mindfulness has been described as “paying attention to something, in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003). We will work on strategies for learning healthy self-care through relaxation and stress management skills. Mindfulness assists with anxiety and depression, but has also been used for greater psychological insight and awareness in variety of circumstances. We may incorporate various types including MBSR (Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction), DBT (Dialectal Behavior Therapy), or other techniques.

SFBT utilizes your existing strengths to focus on solutions instead of problems. We will move forward to make up lost ground and begin behaving differently to begin anew. We will learn how to use your existing successful behaviors to focus on realistic, positive change.

Family Systems Therapy centers on how the family relational root system impacts presenting concerns and behaviors stem from it. We will dig into how isolation and attachments in the family influence individual experience and healing.

Psychoeducation of the Neurobiological Response System teaches how the brain is wired and how the body gives and receives information from the external context. Learning about emotional regulation, the limbic system, neural pathways, and the plasticity of the brain strengthens the work of therapy. Therapy works in the body system.

Developmental Theory offers a developmental framework for understanding growth and stuck points in our lives. We are constantly changing and developing across the entire lifespan. Each stage has what developmental researcher, Erik Erikson, calls milestones to achieve. We will explore developmental milestones and strategies to successfully move through the psychosocial crisis experienced in each developmental stage of the individual and family.

Practice areas:

School-aged Children

  • attachment issues
  • school problems
  • social skills development
  • oppositional behaviors
  • foster care and adoption issue
  • attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
  • parent-child relationship

Adolescents

  • identity development
  • social adjustment
  • psychosocial stressors
  • oppositional and defiant behaviors
  • attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder
  • eating disorders
  • gender identity expression
  • parent-child relationship
  • trauma
  • domestic violence
  • sexual assault
  • anxiety
  • depression

Adults

  • trauma
  • attachment
  • grief/loss
  • life transition and adjustment
  • stress management
  • domestic violence
  • coercive controlling relationships
  • sexual abuse
  • sexual assault
  • PTSD (Posttraumatic stress disorder)
  • eating disorders
  • anxiety
  • depression
  • parenting challenges
  • foster and adoption adjustment
  • family/relational conflict
  • marital conflict
  • persistent interpersonal difficulties

Dr. Valerie Stokes

New Leaf Therapy Services

Phone: 712.441.6591

Office Location:
15 1st Ave NW
Suite B
Le Mars, IA 51031